6 - The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday February 21, 2009 www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate.The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary NEIL OLIVER Vice-president and Group Publisher, Metroland West DAVID HARVEY General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director Metroland Media Group Ltd. includes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser, Alliston Herald/Courier, Arthur Enterprise News, Barrie Advance, Caledon Enterprise, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post, Burlington Shopping News, City Parent, Collingwood/Wasaga Connection, East York Mirror, Erin Advocate/Country Routes, Etobicoke Guardian, Flamborough Review, Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press, Harriston Review, Huronia Business Times, Lindsay This Week, Markham Economist & Sun, Midland/Penetanguishine Mirror, Milton SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution SARAH MCSWEENEY Circ. Manager WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com Canadian Champion, Milton Shopping News, Mississauga Business Times, Mississauga News, Napanee Guide, Newmarket/Aurora EraBanner, Northumberland News, North York Mirror, Oakville Beaver, Oakville Shopping News, Oldtimers Hockey News, Orillia Today, Oshawa/Whitby/Clarington Port Perry This Week, Owen Sound Tribune, Palmerston Observer, Peterborough This Week, Picton County Guide, Richmond Hill/Thornhill/Vaughan Liberal, Scarborough Mirror, Stouffville/Uxbridge Tribune, Forever Young, City of York Guardian Guest Columnist Federal government is investing here Terence Young, Oakville MP uring the last election I promised to work hard to get a fair share of federal money for capital projects in Oakville. This week I had the pleasure of announcing joint federal and provincial funding of $ 30.5 M to build a tiered parking garage for 1,000 cars at Oakville's main GO station, by far the largest federal investment in Oakville in more than 15 years. I believe this is only the beginning of a better federal recognition of Oakville. I remember back in the 1990s driving around the GO Transit lot at 7:45 a.m. trying to find a parking space, having to give up and head onto the QEW to Toronto -- a trail of cars behind me doing the same thing, all of us to arrive at work late. This lot was long overdue. GO provides excellent service and the new lot will keep 1,000 cars off the QEW every business day, forever, reducing green house gases, pollution, traffic and improving quality of life for Oakville commuters. The construction will also provide much needed economic stimulus in the form of new jobs as part of our government's Economic Action Plan -- outlined in the January budget. The world is facing the worst economic crisis we have seen since the Second World War. Canada is doing better than most other countries, but we are still hit by the storm. Rest assured our plan will help. Those who know Prime Minister Harper are not surprised to hear that he graduated from his Etobicoke high school at the top of his class with a 95.6 per cent average and holds Masters in Economics. He recently led the creation of the budget and Economic Action Plan, which is so dynamic the official Liberal Opposition voted to support it with only one minor amendment -- an easy to comply with reporting function. Extraordinary times such as these call for extraordinary measures. The plan designed to boost our Gross Domestic Product by 1.9 per cent this year and guide Canada through the economic turmoil. It will position our country to benefit by making strategic investments, such as loans to the auto industry, $12 billion in capital projects and enhancing our science and technology research and development capacity. Southern Ontario and the GTA have been hard hit by the slowdown. It is still a bastion of our national economy and will remain so when the recovery takes hold. My goal on your behalf is to make sure Oakville receives a fair share of those investments for our community's future, and for example a $1 billion investment in SODA -- the new Southern Ontario Development Agency and Ontario's almost $ 1 billion more in increased federal transfer payments. All this is in conjunction with significant tax deductions for families, seniors and business to help create more economic activity and above all -- jobs. For those who have lost jobs, the plan includes improvements to the employment insurance program like five extra weeks of benefits for those on E.I.; and work sharing agreements will be extended by 14 weeks. And there is another $1 billion for skills training to help people get new and better jobs. This week U.S. President Barack Obama made his first official visit out side the U.S.- to our capital, a return to a more cordial and productive relationship between the U.S. and Canada. He and Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreed on a number of issues: that protectionism is no answer to fighting the recession, that our countries will pursue economic recovery measures and efforts to strengthen the international financial system, and that environmental protection and the development of clean energy are inextricably linked. This bodes well for our future with our largest trading partner and the source of 16 per cent of the oil consumed in the U.S. Please call or write me with your thoughts at young.t@parl.gc.ca or 905-338-2008. Terence Young RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America D THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville TV AUCTION Reasons to dance LIESA KORTMANN / OAKVILLE BEAVER THOSE WERE THE DAYS: Bernice Rakoczy and Margherita Rinaldi dance up a storm as Churchill Place Retirement Residence hosted a Glenn Miller March event to raise funds for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Churchill Place residents were marching, dancing and walking for as long as they could to keep their hearts healthy and to support the Heart and Stroke foundation. Guests from the community also took part. Happiness is good health, a bad memory and a clean closet I think Gretchen Ruben is on to something. Gretchen is a writer who is rigorously and passionately pursuing that most coveted and elusive of all prizes: happiness. Now, according to the late-great Dr. Albert Schweitzer, happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory. But in her extensive research -- in her travels and travails -- Gretchen has come to believe that while good health and a bad memory may well be key cogs in the wheel of happiness, there's more to happiness than Schweitzer's wry simplification. Gretchen has dedicated a sizable chunk of time to "grapple with the challenge of being happier" and to work on a book called The Happiness Project (HarperCollins, autumn 2009), a memoir about the year she spent "test driving every principle, tip, theory and scientific study" that she could find on the subject. In other words, in search of happiness, she's run the gamut from Aristotle to Oprah. I discovered Gretchen online at www.happiness-project.com, the daily blog she maintains while searching for happiness. Admittedly, I was set to dismiss the site as more saccharine selfhelp in a world already inundated with the likes of, "If you want to be happy think of fresh-baked cookies and folded undershirts and the soft feathers of a pretty bird and all your troubles will go away!" But, what I found was the topic of happiness being placed under a microscope and examined -- intensely, intelligently and, thankfully, entertainingly. Not surprisingly, when people are asked what they want out of life, most say they just want to be happy. And yet most people Andy Juniper rarely contemplate their current level of happiness, or consider how they could best reach a higher level. Gretchen suggests that if you spend a little time examining those levels, if you actually consider what could make you happier and then implement corresponding strategies, you may well begin engaging in activities that could goose your smile from, say, 40 to 100 watts. Entering The Happiness Project, Gretchen naturally questioned whether any advice in this field could work and whether people can actually make themselves happier. She was skeptical, but hopeful. Now she is a believer. One of the tenets of this belief is that making simple changes can make a profound difference. For instance, if you dislike your doctor and find your doctor's attitude clashes with your personality and needs, then... switch doctors. Or it could be something more complex: if you know that spending time with your family makes you happy, but you think you don't have enough time, then you need to rearrange your life priorities to create that time. I'll grant you that nothing Gretchen says is news (she creatively culls from others) or earth shattering. But it does make sense. And it is wise. Want to be happy? Get enough sleep. Eat right. Exercise. Make time for fun. Act the way you wish you felt (feel shy, act outgoing, etc.). Connect with people (by nature, humans are social creatures so, be social). And get rid of the things that make you feel annoyed or guilty (clean out your closet, call your grandmother). Since happiness is personal -- what makes one person happy could well make another miserable -- perhaps you should start your own Happiness Project. There's a wonderful bonus in pursuing such a project. You see, you'd be doing everyone a favour because, most experts agree: happiness is actually contagious. Andy Juniper can be visited at his Web site, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com.